Stephanie Zhou

bad times call for good food

They arrived the day before landfall, in groups both large and small. One after another they flooded into our house with their pets, air mattresses, and Styrofoam coolers, and it felt like Mardi Gras in August. Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans the next day, and my relatives from New Orleans lurked apprehensively around the television…

a tourist’s history of cuzco

He flew over the Andes, over the homes pouring smoke like warmed milk, over the children who waved up at him, the owl. The flying owl, his face like a clean dish, pierced secrets and encouraged silence in his people. Ayar Awka, who was now an owl, had left his brother at home because he…

on learning not to know

My worst fear in Spain starts with someone walking up to me on the street. It doesn’t have to be at night, or on an empty street, or anything like that. I can be walking to class on the brightest, most spectacular Granada morning, but if I see someone coming towards me, I brace myself…

on small towns

The first thing you notice when you’re entering the rural, heavily agrarian, and chilly tri-state area of Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts, is that the buildings are all old. Some of them are indeterminately abandoned, sporting chipping paint, dangling shingles, and boarded windows, while others have been refurbished to a synthetic colonial splendor. As you…

spending senior spring with food and friends

There are certain life moments I’ve visualized as being distinctly adult: having my own apartment, throwing dinner parties, and relaxing in front of the TV with a glass of wine. My younger self, having absorbed too much Food Network and too many lifestyle magazines, waited eagerly for a “grown-up life,” full of these moments that…